In answer to the thread's title, maybe give more money to Scotland:

"Funding is crucial. But despite Scotlands contribution to the global success of British tennis, the LTA spent just £800,000 of its £63.5m budget here last year."

from an interesting article of six months ago or so, that may be already here somewhere, sorry if so.

www.heraldscotland.com/news/14749087.Advantage__Scotland__is_tennis_squandering_the_opportunity_of_a_lifetime_/

londontennistube wrote:

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They should help fund londontennistube to go round Europe filming Brits in action at futures events ,it would raise the profile and moral of all the players ,

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That as well

The LTA is a nothing. It's the collective tennis expertise in the UK but since we have traditionally had about zero players who find success in pro level tennis then the LTA isn't made up of anyone who should be entrusted to steering the game and responsible for developing players.

The honorable thing would be for the LTA to recognise it's ineptidude and fold itself, stating that a different type of organisation is required. The AELTC should be given a much greater role in developing tennis in this country. It's not like the AELTC is isolated in its operations. Sir Philip Brook is also head of the Tennis Integrity Board, so has a sweeping influence in tennis. And whatever you feel about the culture of Wimbledon, the people running it understand how to put on a successful operation.

The LTA has the Murray family to thank for any praise or regard it currently gets.

I find it's hard to be very angry with the LTA, even when despairing, because at the end of the end of the day it's a rather sorry and amateurish group of people who are put in the headlights, and it's quite possible to feel sorry for them. Because what reason do we have for expecting they know how to create success and slam champions in UK tennis. It's clear they don't know how. And over decades and different regimes, the knowledge and understanding has never been there.

christ wrote:

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From the LTA website:

The Lawn Tennis Association's (LTA) mission is to get more people playing tennis more often, and part of its role is to govern tennis in Great Britain, Channel Islands and the Isle of Man by acting as guardians to promote and safeguard the integrity of the sport.

I'm struggling to see which bit of that is "help players to find success in pro level tennis"?

Maybe what is being highlighted is that there is a view that a body is needed whose duty is to find and help pro players, but it doesn't appear that the LTA considers itself to be that body. It appears that the LTA may (incidentally/ accidentally) develop players in order to help their primary aim of encouraging people to play.

I'm not sure that (say) funding more $15k tournaments would encourage "more people to play tennis more often".

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So the LTA funds and has funded elite level level British juniors on performance programs for what? So word of player x in a G3 in Tunisia (before they disappear off to US College) will inspire 50yr old Pam and Sue to have a knock around down the local park?

A large part of the LTA's budget has been around High Perfomance Centres, the NTC and such in trying to help develop young players who are aiming to make it on the pro tour. And the feeling is they have concentrated on this end of things far too much and neglected the basics and foundations of the sport.

Hence that mission statement, which is surely a recent revision by Downey. 

 

And if we assess the LTA solely on particpation levels by the general public then it's hard to recognise it's traditionally even been a force that area. But here it is, the brilliance of the LTA with their world leading budget on public participation. And it's even more justification for the LTA to be stripped of its budget for being a completely ineffectual group of nothings.

 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/490370/tennis-participation-uk/

 

 

 

 

Well one thing they do very very well, is the tennis for kids programme. 1000 coaches signed up again to run 2 courses on average. 10 kids for free on each six week course and a free racquet for them at the end of it, so should reach 20000 kids this year across the country. They also run inspirational training days for the coaches involved. I met Leon last year and this year see attached image, awesome!

Great article in the business section of today's Evening Standard by someone called John Peters (new name to me) highlighting the economics of playing tennis as a hobby.  Wanted to post a link but can't find the article online.  Don't know where they've hidden it on their site.

 

-- Edited by The Optimist on Thursday 29th of June 2017 06:48:24 AM

Great article, completely agree, I was faced with a £120 bill for 12 x hours of group coaching for my 5 year old and was outraged enough to take my coaching badges and now offer the same level of coaching myself for £36. It resonates with Coup's idea that clubs/coaches should subsidise their mini-red groups, rather than exploit them. Worryingly David Lloyd clubs are a prime example of mini-red groups being a money making gravy train, rather than a method of introducing new players to the game.